The slow death march of journalism

Unless you are a nerdy journalism wonk (like me), the announcement that the Daily News -- “New York’s Hometown Newspaper’’ -- cut 50 percent (50 friggin PERCENT) of its editorial staff on Monday was probably greeted with a collective yawn outside of the city. As the fine tradition of newspapers, upon which this very country was founded, continues its slow and steady demise, few are surprised and fewer care. A former editor of mine at the Poughkeepsie Journal, a brilliant man referenced in a recent blog post, used to say: “Colaizzo, remember that most readers are vicious, lazy and stupid. If you go by that premise, you’ll do fine.” Vicious, lazy and stupid. Sounds about right. These days, when journalists do their job with solid reporting and say something critical about Prominent People in the Country, they are lambasted as “fake news” or “failing” or, incredibly, “an enemy of the state.” The free press as an “enemy of the state” huh? Be careful what you wish for, people. It is in this climate that the famed Fourth Estate continues to crumble like a yellowed copy of an old newspaper in a box of decades old Christmas decorations. Newsflash, people: Journalism matters. Investigative journalism has been the driving force in unearthed sexual abuse scandals in all arenas (think USA Gymnastics, for starters, and go from there).

Hey, listen, I’m part of the problem as much as anyone. I read the Daily News and the New York Times every day. For free. On my phone, or my laptop. Both newspapers have put up pay walls, but I have been able to circumvent them through various not-so-clever means. I’m reading their content and not paying for it. Therein lies the conundrum of daily journalism: How to survive financially in the digital age. They haven’t figured it out, and as a result, fine men and women, many of whom have spent their lives in the industry, were sent packing on Monday. During the past decade, I experienced it myself at the Poughkeepsie Journal, where I worked for more than half of my life, watching a paper that once employed hundreds of people get whittled down to well under 100 folks; now, most of the "local" work at the Journal is not done by or from local sources at all. Seeing it on a larger scale – the Daily News pared its sports staff from 34 people to 9 people yesterday! – hits home and really saddens me and others who still care about the noble mission of the free press in this country (you know, the whole “checks and balances” thing). If you are so inclined, check out a vintage rant on ESPN Radio by Michael Kay, himself a former Daily News sportswriter. I don’t even like Michael Kay (my preference is Mike Francesa), but his poignant soliloquy sums it up. Kay pointed out that as institutions like the Daily News skitter into irrelevance, it chips away at our democracy and our way of life. Most people don’t care, but I would posit that we should. The fired editor of the Daily News, clearly bitter, wrote this on Twitter on Monday: “If you hate democracy and think local governments should operate unchecked and in the dark, then today is a good day for you.” He also dropped the Daily News affiliation from his Twitter bio. “Just a guy sitting at home watching journalism being choked into extinction,” it reads. Amen brother.

Newspapers have mattered to me my whole life. When I was growing up in northern New Jersey, delivering newspapers, I would read the Star Ledger and Daily Record on my handlebars as I pedaled around the neighborhood hurling the papers in plastic bags onto driveways. My heroes were not the baseball players being written about; rather, my heroes were the sportswriters chronicling them. I can still rattle off their names, just as quickly as I can give you Ron Guidry’s stat line from his epic 1978 season. One of those sportswriters, John Harper, was just fired from the Daily News yesterday. A long and distinguished career, extinguished in a second with a heartless, corporate decision. Sundays were special in my house, because we would get the big Sunday Daily News. I loved reading the “funnies” (the comics) and reading the list of Major League batting averages – all of them – which were only printed on Sundays. My grandfather Tatone (really, he was my father’s uncle, but he was like my grandfather) would walk a mile roundtrip each day, well into old age, to the deli down the street to get Il Progresso, the Italian language newspaper. When he died, we put a copy of that newspaper and a bottle of wine – two simple pleasures of his life – in the casket. Newspapers matter. Or, should I say, mattered. A sad day in a sad era for journalism.